Priming the Pump

Kicking self back into writing mode this AM, and blogging counts as writing, so here I am. Lucky you. ;)

Watched the finale of the BBC America series, Viva Blackpool, this morning, while doing email, and argh. While I was satisfied with some of the storylines, the big ones tanked for me. No spoilers for anyone who might have been following it, but ah, poor Ripley. I'm sure he'll be fine, but oy. I would've made things different for the poor bloke so he'd end up a bit better. Still, I loved getting a look at a new to me part of modern English life, the arcades of Blackpool, and the format of telling a personal/mystery/family story as a full on musical in the style of old Elvis movies with everyone breaking into elaborate song and dance numbers was wonderful. I'd recommend it.

But back to writing. Got an email from my delightful and talented friend, Kat (hi, Kat!) requesting information for a project she's doing, which in turn resulted in my checking the Awe-Struck site (www.awe-struck.net) and finding out that huzzah, My Outcast Heart is listed on the coming soon page, with cover and blurb and everything. Though I had to break out in scare-the-cat laughter because the book was listed as a Regency romance. It's set in colonial NY, a bit removed in both time and distance from Regency England. I know, I know, the word "Regency" makes sales, but truth in advertisting and all, so I wrote the powers that be and asked for "Regency" to be changed to "historical." Good way to get the adrenaline running first thing. Okay, two cups of chai helped, too.

Had another email from a past speaker at CORW, saying she'd been to my site and was pleased to see I had a book out. Said she'd be buying it, so that was a good boost. I love hearing about people buying my book. Good inspiration to keep fingers tippity tappiting on keyboard to put out more.

Resurfacing

What do you get when you combine the start of the holiday season, one husband on vacation, two elderly relatives, one close friend and her mother, one buffet restaurant open on Thanskgiving, three DVDs, one misbehaving laptop, a recalcitrant printer that won't talk to aforementioned laptop, Black Friday shopping, and repeated rounds of one undeliverable email? A) not much writing, B) my week, C) chocolate covered gummi bears. D) both A and B, but not C. E) all of the above.

The correct answer is D. No matter how much I wish it were C. Because chocolate covered gummi bears rival cinnamon buttons in their ability to smooth life's annoyances. Though I do have access to (calorie warning) chocolate covered peppermint cherry cordials.

Took today to work on the mumblemumbles I'm making for Christmas gifts this year, singing along to 70s radio. Call it *my* vacation. I love my DH dearly, though he is a night owl and I am the early bird's early bird. Add in a non-work week schedule, and it's not out of the question that by the time he's up and feeling human, I'm ready to pack it in and am unfit company for anyone I did not make in Create-a-Sim.

Though I didn't get a lot of writing done this week, I can highly recommend the movies About a Boy and Love Actually. (though hide the kiddies' eyes during one plotline of Love Actually) I am a sucker for Hugh Grant movies and British period dramas. As the DH will tell you, his view of every movie I love can be summed up as "blah blah blah, this horrible war is ruining my love life. Oh look, here comes Hugh Grant. Let's have some tea." His addendum is that if Hugh Grant dies in the war, that makes it a good movie. I don't know what this otherwise wonderful man has against Hugh. Maybe I should watch a few Pierce Brosnan movies to balance things out. At least Pierce has the 007 cachet. (Note, this is the same husband who brought home Batman Begins in October and we have yet to view it.)

This is the part where I notice that I've rambled. I have eaten -- a lot. Watched movies, enjoyed family and friends and selected retail establishment. We now enter into my very favorite part of the year. I will soon become Christmas crazed, which will give everything, writing included, a huge boost and relatives will keep feeding me hot chocolate with candy canes in hopes of amping my entertainment value. It will probably work.

Big news today is -- I have my cover! It's a big one, so until I can resize it to post on my site, here's the URL:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v72/Unzadi/MY_OUT1aJPG.jpg

We're *not* all gonna die, and having the cover does finally make it feel real.

January is close, eep. I'm looking forward to the next steps in the process. Which of course is going to include working on promotion. My question -- what sorts of promotional thingies do you like to see/collect? Do they influence whether you'd try a new book/author or recommend to someone who might?

If I may borrow a quote from the Serenity movie (which I have yet to see) "oh God oh God we're all gonna die." Okay, not really, but this proves it is a very good idea I not have people children, if this is how I get when a book baby is about to debut. I am one month and change from My Outcast Heart's release date of January sixth, and my brain is spinning. The cover is 97% ready -- I've seen what there is so far, it's gorgeous, but...is there too much white on it? Probably not, but who knows how it will scan, and we're tight to the wire as it is. Deep breath. Pale grey. It's pale grey. Plus look at all the pretty blues, reds, browns and golds. Happy place. Happy place.

Review copies have gone out, reviews have not come in. Have I mentioned I do not do well on blank space? Kate Rothwell gave a fabulous quote, and I know those review copies are duking it out with everyone else's review copies, reviewers are busy, etc, etc, etc. Happy place.

Pause to guffaw at the irony of yesterday's message at church being about faith vs worry. Spot on, Pastor Mike. As usual. Think I better look up some of those verses again.

I'll be fine -- as the DH says, I have to "worry, sweat and die" about certain things and then I'll be fine. Will return to usual divalicious self and stop strangers on the street to inform them they will be buying my book, very soon.

Without the (technical) pressure of shooting for 50k for NaNo I'm finding the ideas come much easier for Gallowsbait, and I think I *may* have found a way to get some of my hero's POV in without sacrificing the tone. Kind of tricky when one wants to only set one foot inside a particular character's head -- and maybe not even all the toes, either. I do think it could work, though. Will press on and see.

Most of today so far has been spent uninstalling, installing, reinstalling, looking for drivers, and am now doing a driver download that only has eightish hours left. ::sigh:: But it's all progress, right? At least I have Word in now, so that makes the writing life muuuuuuuuuuuuch easier. All in all, it's a Monday, but I wouldn't trade it for the world.

The week that ughed

I think that pretty much sums up the last few days. Sick relatives (in the plural) sick me (climbing out of it) stressed me (big stress stretch of days over, I have survived) and in some ways prospered.

I am 99% certain I am not going to make the 50K of NaNo, as I spent the last week stomping out fires that cut into writing time. I am, surprisingly, after a couple of days of stressing badly over that, okay with it. What I am shooting for now is to write on both OitS and Gallowsbait every day. If that's a sentence each, great, done. If it's page each, even better.

This week has also shown me that I am absolutely an outline gal. Rather than shove myself into spams of stress until I get a rash (not exaggerating here) it's a joy to settle into comfy chair with pretty legal pad (SoftScenes by Ampad makes some gorgeous alternatives to plain yellow -- I do not care for plain yellow) and writing what scene comes after what scene, which lets them flow into each other. Then I can happily follow along after my own breadcrumbs, and end up where I wanted to go in the first place. Since part of the reason for me doing NaNo this year was to increase my output, I'd say knowing for sure a certain method works for me is a success already. It's okay to say "hey, this method isn't working, so I'll do things this way over here" and move merrily along. Does this automatically mean I'm out of NaNo? I'll call that Dunno for now; maybe I'll make the magic number, but if not, I won't stress.